It's time to start gearing up for the 10-Mila folks! (Is it already that time of the year?). 10-Mila is on the weekend in just over a week (April 27-28), and the racing promises to be very exciting this year in Surrahammar, Västmanland!

A good place to start looking around for info (in Swedish) is the 10-Mila homepage. The OK Forum and the swedish site Alternativet are good places to start looking once live coverage begins.

OK's official time for race coverage is given in HDT, local in the Homeland, which is 7 hours behind the time in Sweden. According to the organizers, the womens' damkavlen starts Saturday at 7:00am and finishes up around 10:20. The 10-Mila starts Saturday at 3:00pm and finishes around 1:10 on Sunday.

One interesting difference this year is that all legs will have forking, including the "long night". Perhaps this will increase the advantage for teams with the best depth of talent.

I don't know who the favorites should be, but you can check out the Nordic 4 standings and links to club websites at Alternativet. For the men, Baekkelagets leads with IKHP in second along with Orion. The womens' standings are led by Turun Sunnistajat with the IKHP women in second. The men from Halden are currently 7th and IFK Lidingö is 16th. Is this the year for IKHP?

Can we begin our speculation on the OK Forum?

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), April 19, 2002

Answers

Alternativet is going to provide live coverage of the event announcer. If you can understand Swedish (and at least a few OK forum readers can), it is a great way to follow the event. Hopefully, our Swedish speakers will be listening to the announcer and will pass on the updates.

A new feature of Alternativet's coverage this year is that you can send an email to the announcer. If the announcer has time and the message is interesting, he'll probably read it over the PA system. Maybe we'll be able to send Magnus and Sanna a greeting!

The biggest problem with 10-mila this year is that it is the same weekend as the Chicago A-meet. I hope to have access to the internet at our hotel (but I'm doubtful I'll have broadband access to be able to listen to the announcer).

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), April 19, 2002.

In addition to live speaker service from alternativet, there are supposed to be live times from the forest. They're using electronic punches from Emit. Emit has a new system called ELWIS ("Emit Live Web Information Stations"). Follow ELWIS Tio Mila results at:

http://www.emit.no/elwis/tiomila.htm

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), April 26, 2002.

One of IKHP's key men, Klas "hold 'em" Karlsson, has an injured foot and looks to be questionable for Tio-Mila. Winning Tio-Mila is so hard you really have to have everything going for you, and to be without one of your best runners means you have to start digging out of a hole even before the race starts.

IKHP's women look awesome. They were pretty good when I was there in '90, but now they look to be of an entirely different class, like they've all been handling kryptonite and have become superwomen. I have no idea what the difference has been, but I'm sure lots of people in Sweden would be interested.

IKHP has been known for years and years for being a really strong club, but that was almost solely based on their men. Now, as good as the men are, it's the women who are truly shining!

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), April 21, 2002.

I assume you mean when you were there in '00, Swampfox?

I'll be missing the coverage this year, as I'm directing a meet, and then according to currtn plans I have to immediately skedaddle down south to help my cousin bring his sailboat home. Peter Gagain will be at the NEOC 30th anniversary dinner that evening -- he doesn't have a cell phone, but maybe somebody else there will, and OK can call him to give him updates.

-- J-J (jjcote@juno.com), April 22, 2002.

Ooops! Make that '00, just like J-J surmised.

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), April 22, 2002.

There's some interesting stuff in the Tio-Mila program. For one, the crucial Silva leg (leg 8) has an expected winning time of 60 minutes, and is expected to change over to leg 9 at 6:17 King of Lundsen time. For another, one of the course setters is Lars Roos, who has a reputation for his cunning placement of controls on well hidden, table-top sized marshes. Could this become a Tio-Mila decided by tiny swamps? See for yourself at: http://www.tiomila.se/2002/programboken.pdf

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), April 22, 2002.

P's women look awesome. They were pretty good when I was there in '90, but now they look to be of an entirely different class, like they've all been handling kryptonite and have become superwomen. I have no idea what the difference has been, but I'm sure lots of people in Sweden would be interested.

I talked with Anna Envall -- one of IKHP's top women -- at last summer's Oringen. She told me that the environment in the club is really good. There are a number of women who are all training hard and all in similar situations (I think she meant similar age and with small children).

Annette Granstedt said something similar in an interview in Skogssport last year.

As an aside...I met Anna when she was a student at one of the O' high schools in Sweden (I stayed with her parents while I did some mapping). Most of the time, she was at the school in another town, but when she came home we went training. She must have been about 18, and she was training hard. She was strong and fast. She was focused, too. I was impressed.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), April 22, 2002.

Shocking news....I checked IF Thor's homepage and Magnus and Sanna are NOT running Tio-Mila. What's up with that?

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), April 23, 2002.

Here is the scoop on Magnus and Sanna. They aren't going to be at Tio-Mila because they are going to a friend's wedding.

Magnus also let me know that they've been training for some adventure races (which in Sweden are called multi-sport).

-- Michael (Mike_Eglinski@kcmo.org), April 24, 2002.

What kind of friend would have a wedding on Tio-Mila weekend??? Are you sure Magnus and Sanna aren't being held hostage by evil Norse griffins?

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), April 26, 2002.

Usually Spike's transalations from Swedish have been impeccable, however there are signs he has been spending too much time recently looking at Norwegian O' web pages. How else to explain the startling poor translation about the new Emit system to be tried out at Tio- Mila? Actually the system is called ELVIS and the way it works is that top clubs will be assigned a random Elvis Presley song, and whenever one of that club's runners punches at one of the special ELVIS stations, the assigned song will be played over the PA System back at the event center. Right now orienteers from around Scandinavia are busily studying the program book, committing to memory the song-club list, and Elvis album sales have exploded in Sweden this week. At the spectator control there will be a Klader Hojden (dots missing over the "a" and "o"), or a "clothes hill", and women will be encouraged to select garments from the pile of clothing and throw them at their favorite runners. Runners who run up the Finish Chute wearing an Elvis suit and wig with sideburns will be give an opportunity to sing their favorite Elvis song after they pass the Finish line, and if the rendition is even poor (but not terrible), enough time will be subtracted from the runner's team's total time so that the team advances 15 placings in the race for that leg. Viva Las Vegas, Baby!

Sport Ident tried to muscle in on the Tio-Mila this year, but it's no surprise that their newest technology, known as N-SYNCH, didn't even get a listen.

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), April 26, 2002.